Monday, May 24, 2004

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect for the human body is a good thing. Think of the recent Abu Ghraib pictures of two MPs grinning over the bruised corpse of a prisoner. Logically, it should be the least offensive of the pictures. When those photos were snapped, Manadel al-Jamadi was beyond pain, fear, and humiliation, something that can't be said of the victims in any of the other photographs. And yet the treatment of his body -- cellophane wrapped, packed in ice, and squabbled and joked over -- is still obscene. Some basic respect for human beings breaks down in the desecration of a body. That insult may not have the power to hurt Manadel al-Jamadi, but it shrivels all our souls.

Preview of coming distraction

Bush is going to speak to the nation tonight, apparently in order to assure us that he intends to have a plan to deal with the last country he invaded before he settles on the next one, or some such thing, but Digby saves us the need to actually watch the thing by pointing out

"He's like a Japanese speaking actor playing a role in phonetic English. No matter how passionately he delivers the lines, the inflection and the rhythm are always off because he doesn't understand the language he's speaking."

That's right folks. It doesn't matter what he says, because he doesn't know what he's saying. Or doing. It's up to us.

DeLayed reaction

The fact that our entire government is apparently paralyzed with infighting is the kind of thing which should be treated with concern.

The kind of paralysis we're seening in Washington, D.C. right now is usually attributed to excessive partisanship, and it's certainly true that the Congressional Democrats seem more united and disciplined than most any of us can remember. That's really not the problem this time, though.

The Senate has had to postpone a budget vote because of Republican Party in-fighting, not simply because of Democratic Party resistance, and the cracks in the shell of unity among the House Republicans, cracks resulting largely from the insistent pounding that have given Tom DeLay the nickname 'The Hammer,'are becoming more apparent.

Those cracks are impressively revealed today in a Salon feature, ostensibly about former Republican Leader Dick Armey's rocky relationship with the Texas bug killer, but targetting much wider problems, both for the operation of Congress and for the White House. Armey, who is as partisan as the day is long himself, points out a problem that the dissension in Republican ranks is creating. Noting that Democrats are fretting about Ralph Nader taking a few points away from Kerry, Armey says

"...I think the Bush folks need to say, 'Well, how do we survive if 3 or 4 or 5 percent of our foundation base just decides to sit out the election?"

He sees it as a real concern for his side, and I don't disagree except that I see it as a real opportunity for ours.

The problem for the R's, in the view of Norman Ornstein, is that DeLay "has taken every norm the Legislature has operated on and shredded it." How bad is it? According to Ornstein,

"On a scale of 1 to 10, Democrats abused their majority status at about a level 5 or 6. Republicans today have moved it to about an 11."

The problem is that DeLay has used that abuse to solidify his own political power, often at the expense of his Party's traditional program, and has weakened the Party's institutional base in the process.

Not that that's a bad thing...

Update: I notice that The Stakeholder is touting the Salon story and tying it to their 'Hard Sell Monday' money pitch. It's a good place to toss a couple bucks if there's anything left after your generous donation to ME ME ME(ahem). There's a key election next week in South Dakota. Stephanie Herseth needs and deserves all the help the DCCC can offer. They can only help her as much as we help them.

Light blogging yesterday...

as Sally, the brilliant and beautiful Bride Of Upper Left, and I made a stab at retaining a semblance of a social life, so I've got some catchup to do. It's a beautiful day in Seattle though, and there's moss to knock off the roof and a couple of flats of geraniums that would look better in the window boxes than on the deck, so it may be hit and miss today as well.

And oh, yeah. I've got to do a little writing for money, too. Speaking of which, if anyone out there is connected to a campaign or consulting shop that could use some freelance copy-writing help, let's talk! There's an impending financial crisis (maybe perpetual is a better description) here at Upper Left World Headquarters, and my client list is a little thin just now.

Of course, if you'd like to toss a couple bucks in the tip jar instead, or as well, that would be just fine and greatly appreciated, too.

Sunday, May 23, 2004

The Green Zone as Young Republican playground

The catalog of what has gone wrong with our administration of the occupation of Iraq rivals the list of administration lies that led to the beginning of the war in Iraq, but today's Washington Post report on the way the Congressional Provisional Authority was staffed is a stunner.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col Joseph Yoswa, is quoted saying that when the government ran short of qualified applicants they "turned to the Heritage Foundation, an educational facility, albeit a conservative one, but primarily a place where you can get good, solid people." Hundreds of hires were made from the names gathered from a job board posted on the explicitly partisan Heritage web site. How good? How solid? The Post examines a group that were assigned to the CPA budget offices.

When Ledeen's group showed up at the palace -- with their North Face camping gear, Abercrombie & Fitch camouflage and digital cameras -- they were quite the spectacle. For some, they represented everything that was right with the CPA: They were young, energetic and idealistic. For others, they represented everything that was wrong with the CPA: They were young, inexperienced, and regarded as ideologues.
Several had impressive paper credentials, but in the wrong fields. Greco was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish; Burns had been a policy analyst focused on family and health care; and Ledeen had co-founded a cooking school. But none had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement.

Other staffers quickly nicknamed the newcomers "The Brat Pack."

"They had come over because of one reason or another and they were put in positions of authority that they had no clue about," remembered Army Reserve Sgt. Thomas D. Wirges, 38, who had been working on rehabilitating the Baghdad Stock Exchange.

The various blunders and inadequacies of the gaggle of 20-something idealogues we staffed the occupation offices with are scary, but what I found particularly infuriating was this paragraph.

The pay turned out to be good. Ledeen and her coworkers had agreed to come to Iraq without knowing their salaries. They ended up with standard government base salaries in the range of $30,000 to $75,000 a year, plus a 25 percent foreign differential, another 25 percent for a workplace "in imminent danger" and overtime pay. In the end, almost everyone was making the equivalent of six-figure salaries.

Compare that to the pay rate of an Army infantry Specialist with four years of intensive training and experience, facing daily fire far from the CPA's heavily fortified 'Green Zone'. The experienced E-4's monthly rate is $1814, less than $22,000 a year. The allowance for 'Immanent Danger' is $225 a month. All totaled, the highly trained, combat hardened infantryman with all allowances makes less than the base pay of the CPA's entry level trainees, and less than a fourth of the six figure paychecks that "almost everyone" in the Young Republican trainee corps was pulling down when their generous allowances were folded in.

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Filling in the puzzle.

Although I've absorbed an enormous amount of coverage of the scandals surrounding the treatment of detainees in Iraq and elswhere, I haven't been able to escape a nagging feeling that something's been missing, or I've been missing something, that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Reading Joe Conason's latest dispatch for Salon, it jumped right out at me...

The legal arguments that justified the Bush administration's undermining of the Geneva Conventions can be traced to John Ashcroft's Justice Department, where a top deputy to the attorney general drafted them during the months after 9/11.

Well, of course. That SOB's fingerprints had to be somewhere in this mess. And it turns out his role is pretty central.

According to a knowledgeable source, Defense Department Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith first sought the assistance of the military's Judge Advocate General Corps in fashioning policies that evaded or diluted the Geneva protections. But ranking JAG officers, who prided themselves on upholding those traditional human rights safeguards, strongly opposed the changes sought by Feith. He then turned to the Justice Department, where Yoo -- then a deputy assistant attorney general in the department's office of legal counsel -- was assigned to formulate arguments to evade the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions.

One of John Kerry's earliest and most popular applause lines was his promise to appoint an Attorney General "...who's name is not John Ashcroft!" That alone is a deal closer for me, and a good enough reason to go out and find five more votes for JK...

And you thought Nancy was tough.

The esteemed House Minority Leader may have nailed Bush's moldy pelt to the White House wall with a railroad spike this week, but in some ways her comments pale beside the more widespread assault on the administration that comes via former NSC staffer Roger Morris, who concluded his own government career by resigning from the Nixon administration over the invasion of Cambodia.

Calling on today's foreign service professionals to follow his lead, Morris offers an open letterin Salon. Here are some of the characterizations he makes of the "cabal of political appointees and ideological zealots, led by the exceptionally powerful and furtively doctrinaire Vice President Cheney." He describes

"...a deeply politicized, parochial Pentagon."

a "...willfully uninformed and heedless president..." who has inspired "...tales of his ignorance and sectarian fervor."

while telling the FSOs that "You serve the worst foreign policy regime by far in the history of the republic."

How bad is it? This bad.

"...we are living a foreign policy nightmare, locked in a cycle of violence and seething, spreading hatred continued at incalculable cost, escaped only with hazardous humiliation abroad and bitter divisions at home. Debacle is complete.

"...who remains the political general he always was, never honoring your loss by giving up his office when he might have stemmed the descent."

Then Morris makes his plea

."Your resignations alone would speak to America the truth that beyond any politics, this Bush regime is intolerable -- and to an increasingly cynical world the truth that there are still Americans who uphold with their lives and honor the highest principles of our foreign policy."

He knows, of course, that the price for such action is high. It's a price he once paid himself. Still, he offers this reassurance.

"My friends and I used to remark that the Nixon administration was so unprincipled it took nothing special to resign. It is a mark of the current tragedy that by comparison with the Bush regime, Nixon and Kissinger seem to many model statesmen."

There's more, just as strong, just as true. Buy the sub or watch the ad, but don't skip this one.

And speaking of the DCCC...

Democrats hurled sharp barbs at the White House, with Rep. Robert Matsui of Sacramento, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, declaring that President Bush is "either clueless or incompetent" when it comes to the war.

****

Matsui, who rarely engages in political hyperbole, joined forces with Pelosi in blasting the president's conduct of the war.

He said the president "should come to grips about where we are in this war instead of fantasizing that we'll win this war."

The Sacramento congressman called DeLay "a thug and all here know it."

****

"What Nancy Pelosi said about the president's incompetence is on a lot of people's minds," he said. "She called it like it is, and they're coming back with cheap shots."

****

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. .... said he traveled with Pelosi to Iraq and Afghanistan, and "there's no more caring American than she is in dealing with the troops that she met, not only in the field, but in the hospitals."

By the way...

...howdy to the new folks that are coming this way via the DCCC's Rumsfeld wire. Hope you find this place worth a bookmark, and if you're so inclined, there's a PayPal button conveniently located to your right...

If you're looking for Chalabi news...

...I'm afraid that it's just another of those fascinating stories I simply don't have the time or energy to keep up with, but Josh Marshall is all over it. Anything I could tell you would be ripped straight from there, so you may as well visit the source.

Friday, May 21, 2004

I should live so long.

The CJR Campaign Desk's Brian Montopoli lays waste to some of the Republican comments on Nancy Pelosi's indictment of Bush's inexperience and incompetence with the simple application of fact...

Pelosi's statement was incendiary, and it's not surprising that the other side reacted angrily. But neither of these statements seems to directly address what Pelosi said. Schmidt talked about "blame America first," despite the fact that Pelosi did not, by any account, blame America -- first, last, or otherwise. He also said that it was the terrorists responsible for the violence, not the president -- despite Pelosi's not ascribing any responsibility for "the violence."

Reynolds reaches even further, claiming that Pelosi was taunting the troops "by saying they dying needlessly and are risking their lives in a shallow mission." Pelosi wasn't talking about the troops, of course, let alone taunting them -- she was talking about the president. And, as a later version of the story points out, she doesn't live in a "pastel-colored condo" -- though we're not sure how the color of Pelosi's place is relevant to Bush's performance in Iraq.

...and follows it up with an intriguing notion.

So here's an idea: What if Associated Press reporter Jim Abrams followed up these irrelevant quotes by writing, "When asked to directly address Pelosi's charges, he declined to comment." Once they've been stung by a few such printed rebukes, politicians, spokesman, and political operators will think twice before offering up talking points and ad hominem attacks instead of actual responses.

Like I said, intriguing, but you'll get better odds playing the lottery...

It's not what Jesus would do...

...but what we'd do to him.

I am not a Christian, but these words from Jeanne d'Arc at Body & Soul caught me right between the eyes.

The damage done at Abu Ghraib was done to Iraqi prisoners, to their friends and families, and to all Iraqis, who were sent a clear message about how our country treats their country. The "damage" to our military is secondary at most. After all the times we've seen the pictures, we still have a distorted view of who the victims are.

The most important thing to remember about the crucifixion of Jesus is not that it sullied the reputation of all the good Roman soldiers.

The case was long since made.

When considering the reasons for a Rumsfeld resignation, it's a mistake to focus too narrowly on the role he played in setting policies that resulted in the torture at Al Ghraib. While that may be sufficient grounds in itself for some, sufficient grounds existed long before the shocking revealations of that torture appeared. There were good reasons for John Kerry to call for Rumsfeld to step aside last fall, and good reasons for others to make similar calls long before that.

In fact, Rumsfeld himself pointed to the best reason at all during his recent Congressional appearance, where he admitted that he should consider standing down if he could no longer be effective in his role. The fact is, there's no evidence that he ever has been effective.

Retired Army officer turned pundit Ralph Peters stated the case plainly in a New York Post op-ed.

"He should resign for the good of our military and our country. Those twisted photos are only one symptom of how badly the Rumsfeld era has derailed our military.

"Rumsfeld has maintained a positive image with much of America because he controls information fanatically and tolerates no deviation from the party line. Differing opinions are punished in today's Pentagon - and every field general who has spoken plainly of the deficiencies of either the non-plan for the occupation of Iraq, the lack of sufficient troops (in Iraq or overall) or any aspect of Rumsfeld's "transformation" plan has seen his career ended.

"It isn't treason to tell the truth in wartime. But it verges on treason to lie. And Rumsfeld lies."

One of the elements that Bush cited in praising Rumsfeld for a "superb" job was his leadership in two wars, but at this point, both of those wars have to be counted as failure. In Afghanistan, the Taliban was removed from power, but it was done in a way that leaves them on the map, continuing to embattle the government we installed to replace them, and our primary focus, the top echelon of the Al Qaida terrorist ring, continues to elude capture. Resources that were allocated for the establishment of a stable government and the pursuit of Bin Laden and his chief assistants were diverted, apparently illegally, in order to begin the build up for the next Rumsfeld war in Iraq.

In the lexicon of more and more observers, Iraq is being translated as Arabic for Vietnam. Once again, we are in a war in which we cannot be defeated on the battlefield, but in which we cannot find a path to victory in the political sphere. Much of the reason for that can be attributed directly to Donald Rumsfeld's experiments in implementing a new defense philosophy and his refusal to consider the dissenting voices within the ranks of our military leadership.

Remember the glorious run to Baghdad? It was a textbook example of the Rumsfeld philosophy. A relatively small force of highly mobile units, supported by strike teams of special forces and an array of high tech weaponry that easily overwhelmed the toke resistance of a hugely diminished Iraqi opponent. We set out to depose Saddam, and depose him we did, but in the process we bypassed dozens of potential battle sites, leaving an armed and embarrassed enemy in our wake, ready to rise up in an persistent guerilla campaign that has made the occupation of Iraq a quagmire of, well, Vietnamese proportions. It was not only completely predictable, it was widely predicted by some of the very highest ranking officers in the military ranks.

It was a failure of planning that General Anthony Zinni, USMC Ret. and a former CinC of Central Command, judges in terms that would lead to the quick replacement of any field commander.

"In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption. I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and [in not] fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan."

Zinni places responsibility directly at Rumsfeld's door.

"He should not have been surprised. There were a number of people who before we even engaged in this conflict that felt strongly that we underestimated...the scope of the problems we would have in [Iraq]."

It's not just a failure of battle plans and subsequent execution that has marked the Rumsfeld Defense Department. It has been a center for scandal, including the Boeing procurement scandals, the diversion of Afghanistan war funds and the appointment of high ranking officials with fraudulent academic credentials. His plan to revamp the departments personnel system, according to Kay Coles James, the Bush administrations director of the Office of Personnel Management "tramples veterans' rights, offers a bad model for changing federal pay and represents a strategic blunder in the attempt to modernize the federal civil service government-wide."

"Rumsfeld and his team of top lieutenants have therefore now lost the confidence, trust and respect of both the Army and intelligence establishments. Key elements of the political establishment even of the ruling GOP now recognize this."

Of course, it's nothing like Vietnam...

...but I have noticed an increasing emphasis on enemy body counts in coverage of the battles in Iraq. We used to report enemy deaths with a similar certainty in the war to which this war must not be compared, too. As I recall, the general policy was that everything dead was the enemy...except I don't think they have water buffalo in Iraq.

At the same time, there seems to be less and less said about the growing ranks of American and allied fatalities. It's out there, though. Undelay does a great job day by day, personalizing the statistics with details about our troops lives and deaths. It should be a regular stop for any informed netizen.

For the raw data, you can try the fine folks at Lunaville.org, who want you to know that 56 Americans have died in Iraq so far in May, out of a total of 60 coalition fatalities. That's the fifth highest monthly total since they started counting last month, and well on the way to the top two or three.

That brings the total coalition death toll to 907, with 797 of them being Americans.

Ouch!

A stinger, but it hurts so good.

In his weekly missive to Alterman, Charles Pierce offers some handy hints for Republican administrations who set out to undermine the Constitution. He has several good points, and defines the appropriate role for the pathetic hack.

Oh, and just for the purposes of set decoration, make sure Colin Powell is standing nearby, probably with pigeons landing on his head.

Nancy strikes back

And Bob's got her back.

Having drawn fire from every corner of the Republican attack machine, Nancy Pelosi fires back.

Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference that it was Bush's "activities, his decisions, the results of his actions (that) undermines his leadership, not my statements. My statements are just a statement of fact.

"Understand that when our kids are in harm's way, we are united -- it is one team, one fight. But they cannot say that anybody who criticizes their failures to be not supportive of our troops. It is the very support of the troops that provokes the candor that we must have about what's happening with this war, the cost in lives ... the cost in dollars to the taxpayer, and the cost in reputation to our country."

"In fact, what she said is what many people are thinking,'' said Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Sacramento, who heads the House Democrats campaign committee. "I think many Democrats want our leaders to speak out on these issues."

Matsui echoed Pelosi's critique of Bush, calling developments in Iraq a sign of the president's "either being clueless, or being incompetent."

As for the charge that such criticisms are inappropriate during a time of war, Matsui said: "Frankly, that's McCarthyism."

You can stand with her, too. The Stakeholder has a link to an online poll on Leader Pelosi's remarks. Vote early and often.

Now I'm really worried...

...not.

The Poorman gets a leg up on Kaus with a Dem Panic Watch item of his own...

Foundering Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry raises twice as much money in April as President George W. Bush. Bush raised $15.6 million in April and spent over $30 million, and has spent $130 million on his campaign so far. John Kerry continues to lead the president in most polls...

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Help on the way?

Bush took a trip across town to soothe the fevered brows of the Congressional R's today, and Josh Marshall took note of a remark that may help him with that competency problem ShouldBeSpeaker Pelosi mentioned...

According to several participants, President Bush told Republicans that the Iraqis are ready to "take the training wheels off" by assuming power.

That's a bit of a condescending thing to say about a country which encompasses what is generally considered to be the cradle of civilization. But the thought that an extra set of training wheels may now be available prompts the question of whether the Iraqis might be willing to hand their pair off to the White House.

Lonely?

So it's not just me...

Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush’s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush’s presidency is only the best since Clinton’s and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.

A few noteworthy comments from the historians...

"No predecessor so thoroughly managed to confirm the impressions of those who already hated America....I don 't think that you can do much worse than that."

"Bush is horrendous; there is no comparison with previous presidents, most of whom have been bad."

"He lies, constantly and often, seemingly without control..."

"George W. Bush's presidency is the pernicious enemy of American freedom, compassion, and community; of world peace; and of life itself as it has evolved for millennia on large sections of the planet."

Ya gotta love her. Really. You do.

"Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader,'' Pelosi said. "He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.''

****

"He has on his shoulders the deaths of many more troops, because he would not heed the advice of his own State Department of what to expect after May 1 when he ... declared that major combat is over,'' Pelosi charged. "The shallowness that he has brought to the office has not changed since he got there."

Honest, he's all wrong..,

...and that's alright.

As you may have noticed, I'm not a particularly big fan of all the Kerry/McCain speculation. I'm not even a very big fan of John McCain, who is a doctinaire Republican conservative, after all. On the other hand, it is kind of fun to see him stick his finger in his fellow R's eye and call them to account for their supposed principles.

He's not going to be the VP pick, though, and is exceedingly unlikely to abandon his Senate seat for the transitory honor of a cabinet post, even if asked by a President of either party. Nope, he's going to stay right where he is for as long as he (and the voters of Arizona) pleases. Which is fine, for the very reason pointed out at Pandagon today in a comment on the Hastert/McCain dustup that's in the news.

...what happens when someone says the wrong thing and McCain decides to go all maverick on them? He has enough credibility to both maintain his Republican voting record and criticize his own party strongly enough to turn people against Bush (and other Republican incumbents). McCain isn't Zell Miller. He actually has the ideological credentials to be a critic of his own party and persuade members of his own party to follow him.

As long as McCain continues to point to the hypocrisy of the Republican leadership, making them look foolish in the process and even more foolish to the degree they contradict him, the better off we are. McCain may be idealogically wrong about almost everything, but being an essentially honest man, he's also honestly wrong, and the liars who run his Party today can't do anything but suffer under the scrutiny of that honesty.

Making a list...

...and checking it until it's complete.

WASHINGTON — Three key witnesses, including a senior officer in charge of interrogations, refused to testify during a secret hearing against an alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves.

Fair enough. They're within their rights. But since their criminal culpability for the events at Al Ghraib is evident from their refusal to participate in the Graner hearing, when will we see the criminal charges filed against

Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison

Capt. Donald J. Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company

and Adel L. Nakhla, a civilian translator employed by Titan Corp. who "elected not to participate in the proceedings and was excused."

More names belong on that list, including the names of some who wear stars on their shoulders, but it's a start.

Who are we, anyway?

I've said before that I'm a 'big tent' Democrat. As a long time advocate and activist for the liberal/progressive wing of the Party, I've still accepted that having major party status on a national level requires some major accomadations to a wider range of views. I get, for instance, that there probably aren't more than a couple dozen Congressional Districts in the country who would elect a Representative as liberal as my own Congressman, Jim McDermott. I heartily support the election of Don Barbieri to the open seat in WA-05, although I'm certain that Barbieri, who represents the more socially cautious, business-friendly "New Democrat" wing of the Party, will disappoint me with many of the votes he takes when elected.

Still, a tent, no matter how expansive, is ultimately an enclosure. There are walls on all sides - to the left as well as to the right. So, what makes a Democrat a Democrat?

This year, of all years, I think the line has to be support for the Democratic Presidential ticket. Zell Miller, for instance, has finally removed himself from the tent not by virtue of any of the votes he cast in common with the Republican caucus over the last six years, but by his endorsement of the Republican ticket for the White House. On the other side of the political spectrum, there's the spectre of Ralph Nader, whose candidacy continues to inspire comments like this:

"...Kerry is carefully positioning himself/squeezed between anti-war Democrats who might desert for Nader and the need to sound supportive of the troops."

There are several fallacies implied by those words, including the notion that John Kerry is, in fact, 'pro-war,' or that there's an contradiction between supporting the Bush war effort and supporting the troops who have been deployed as a result. I would argue strenuously on the negative side of either of those propositions.

The point that distresses me most at the moment, though, is the one made by the words I've highlighted. There's no doubt that many of the people who may vote for Ralph Nader vote for many, probably most, of the Democrats who appear on their ballots, year after year. Does usually voting for Democrats make you a Democrat? Well, no. Many people who generally vote Democratic emphatically identify as independents. Most of them, in fact, split their tickets. There's a substantial element of the electorate that takes great pride in proclaiming that "I vote for the person, not the Party." I suppose there may be elections in which there's even an element of validity to such a position. In the case of down ballot, non-partisan races, I may have cast a few ballots for non-Democrats over the years myself. I've even made the occasional protest vote when a Democratic ballot line has, for whatever reason, been taken by a candidate whose personal views lie too far outside the central positions of the Democratic Party to countenance. A good example is the occasional appearance of a LaRouche 'Democrat' appearing on a ballot.

Not this time, though, not this election year, in this Presidential contest. The contrasts are simply too clear. The price is simply too high. A Nader voter may be acting on strong (if, in my opinion, unreasonable) principles, but they are not Democratic Party principles. If you are a Democrat, you're voting for John Kerry. I really believe it's that cut and dried. If you choose to do otherwise, you're on the same side of the tent wall as Zell Miller, and welcome to the company you choose.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

The Big Three-O

Another week, and the Scandal Scorecard just gets bigger. Jesse from The Stakeholder suggests the ties between Tom DeLay and Messrs. Scanlon and Abramoff, who've raked in $45 million in lobbying fees because of their friend's presumed favor. It's a good story, worth your attention, but I'm not clear on how DeLay will end up criminally or civilly liable for his pal's good fortune, so it's not on the list yet.

Instead, we turn to the Department of Health and Human Services, which, according to the Washington Post, is being investigated by the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, the General Accounting Office, the Office of Government Ethics and the HHS inspector general for a series of incidents which, among other things, have "...repeatedly allowed government scientists to engage in lucrative consulting deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies..."

For example? The article cites several instances, but the one most directly tied to Bushco is an ethics waiver signed by HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson that let Medicare cheif Thomas A. Scully to line up his new job as a lobbyist with an Atlanta law firm that represents "drug makers, hospitals and other health care businesses" while he was crafting and promoting legislation that directly impacts the bottom line of those very businesses.

It starts at the top.

The Denver Post reports that the investigations in Iraq include "......more than twice as many allegations of detainee abuse - 75 - are being investigated by the military than previously known. Twenty-seven of the abuse cases involve deaths; at least eight are believed to be homicides." The investigations extend to at least four facilities in Iraq.

ABC News reports that Sgt. Samuel Provance of the 302nd MI Battalion has charged that "dozens" of soldiers at Al Ghraib were involved in cases of abuse.

The Red Cross has filed reports of 50 allegations of abuse at Camp Cropper.

It's abundantly clear that the problems with our treatment of POWs and other detainees in Iraq extends far beyond a handful of Reserve MPs operating as roque agents in a single cell block. It's also totally unremarkable that this is true.

In fact, as scandalous as the conduct of those Reservists may be, the level of denial coming out of the civilian hierarchy and military brass is equally if not more scandalous. With over 130,000 heavily armed individuals operating in a distant, alien and generally hostile environment, it should simply be no surprise at all that as many as hundreds of them might conduct themselves improperly. It happens in every war. To pretend that we can conduct war in a pristine fashion, that Americans in Iraq cannot or will not do what Americans and troops of every nation have done in every other combat environment in our history is simply absurd.

It's also no reflection at all on the overwhelming majority of our troops - and the troops of other nations - that conduct themselves honorably in circumstances that those who have never been combatants simply can't fathom.

The abuses are a problem, but it's a problem that the UCMJ and the court martial procedures of the US military is completely capable of handling. The greater problem at this point is the attempt to cover up the realities of war and to pretend that these problems weren't inherent in the decision to go to war. To, in other words, compound the lies that led to the beginning of the war with another layer of lies about its conduct.

But lie they must, because the truth is that the central problem isn't using MPs to 'set the conditions' for interrogation, although that's a problem. The central problem is that a line is appearing that clearly leads from those Sergeants and Privates up through Captains and Majors and into the ranks of a series of Generals and civilian authorities. It's a line that leads directly to the office of the Secretary of Defense, where the conditions that made the behavior of those MPs inevitable were set in the first place.

The whole thing is rotten, and like a decaying fish, the rot extends from the head. For the honor of our troops and our nation, we need to cut out the rot where it begins.

As bad as a fraternity prank...

...During interrogation, detainee was kicked in the rib cage, punched in kidney area and slapped in the head.

...The detainee, an escapee who had been recaptured, was shackled to the door of his cell with his hands over his head and gagged. Five minutes later, he was found dead.

...Military police officer used butt of M-4 rifle to strike a detainee in the face and on the back of the neck. Then the officer placed the muzzle of his M-4 rifle in the detainee's mouth and pulled trigger on the empty weapon.

...a "high-priority target," was placed inside a sleeping bag with only his feet exposed. He was rolled back and forth while being questioned. One of the interrogators sat on his chest and placed hands over his mouth. He died during the interrogation, and an autopsy confirmed evidence of blunt force trauma to the chest and legs.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Kerry Core update

Thanks to all that have helped out - it's a level of support I never could have achieved on my own this year. In all honesty, though, my pals from The Well have pretty well outstripped the Upper Left readership in total donations. Maybe we can turn that around as we drive toward the second $1000. The Kerry campaign is looking for a financial 'Miracle In May.' Anything you can do would be great, and if you could do it here, well, that would be great, too.

Let's get ready to r-r-r-r-rumble!

"...three major institutions in the Washington power structure have decided that after almost a full presidential term of being treated with contempt and abuse by them, it's payback time.

Those three institutions are: The United States Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and the old, relatively moderate but highly experienced Republican leadership in the United States Senate."

The Army and CIA have the inside story, and if they're ready to deliver it up to the Senate, they'll have a ready audience, with Sen. John Warner, Chair of the Armed Forces Committee already on record with his discontent.

"In my 25 years on this committee, I've received hundreds of calls, day and night, from … all levels, uniform and civilian, from the Department of Defense when they, in their judgment, felt it was necessary, and I daresay other members on this committee have experienced the same courtesy," Warner declared.

"I did not receive such a call in this case, and yet I think the situation was absolutely clear and required it - not only to me, but my distinguished ranking member and other members of this committee."

With help from other dissident Repbulicans, including Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and a united cadre of Democrats, the Senate Armed Forces Committee could be the setting for political disaster for the Bush administration. If the Committee becomes the forum for public testimony corroborating the unnamed sources behind the recent reporting in the New Yorker and Newsweek, it will be a lot harder to name the potential survivors than the probable victims of the criminal and incompetent policy directions that have emerged from DOD under Rumsfeld.

How likely is it that those in the know will come forward? More likely all the time, I think. Sieff reports that

"...intelligence and regular Army sources have told UPI that senior officers and officials in both communities are sickened and outraged by the revelations of mass torture and abuse, and also by the incompetence involved, in the Abu Ghraib prison revelations. These sources also said that officials all the way up to the highest level in both the Army and the Agency are determined not to be scapegoated, or allow very junior soldiers or officials to take the full blame for the excesses."

Administrations come and go, and military and intelligence professionals understand that. To think that they'll sit by and watch the reputations of the instutitions they've given their lives to sacrificed to the temporary advantage of a handful of individuals, no matter how high their temporary standing, is highly unlikely.

Without getting into an "if I told you, I'd have to kill you" level of detail, I'll just say that I spent much of my tour of Vietnam hanging around career MI types from MACV J-2 and the spooks down the hall. Whatever you may think you know from the movies about field phone generators and aborted helicopter rides, nothing drove those guys crazier than clumsy field interrogations by our erstwhile ARVN allies, or misguided instructions from those far from the field. I don't imagine that's changed much. That attitude, combined with the resentment that's been brewing in military circles for three decades after being hung with the blame for a 'defeat' in Vietnam in order to cover the political blunders of a series of pols and bureaucrats leads me to expect a backlash of enormous proportions before they take another tumble.

Likely suspects?

Fred Kaplan says the list is a lot longer than seven...

Bush knew about it. Rumsfeld ordered it. His undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Steven Cambone, administered it. Cambone's deputy, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, instructed Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been executing the program involving al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo, to go do the same at Abu Ghraib. Miller told Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the 800th Military Brigade, that the prison would now be dedicated to gathering intelligence. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, also seems to have had a hand in this sequence, as did William Haynes, the Pentagon's general counsel. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, learned about the improper interrogations—from the International Committee of the Red Cross, if not from anyone else—but said or did nothing about it for two months, until it was clear that photographs were coming out. Meanwhile, those involved in the interrogations included officers from military intelligence, the CIA, and private contractors, as well as the mysterious figures from the Pentagon's secret operation.

You know I wouldn't send you over to Kaus' neighborhood without a good reason, but let's not slime brother Kaplan with guilt by association. Check out his analysis.

A word for the ones who got it right...

...but first, a little personal history.

About thirt(ahem) years ago, I was a witness in a court martial. It was no easy thing. The accused soldier was guilty, and though his crime didn't involve physical harm to anyone, it did involve the violation of a trust that hampered our unit's mission and general morale. He was found guilty, in no small part because of my testimony, and I witnessed him being led to the stockade in shackles.

It wasn't easy. The guy slept two bunks down from me for months. We shared who knows how many beers, laughs and barracks lies. He was a decent guy who, I'm sure, would never have committed a similar crime left to his own devices in his home town. Drafted into an alien culture (and military life is indeed an alien culture) and moved to a distant continent desocialized him in a way that resulted in a prison sentence, a Bad Conduct discharge and who knows what negative effect on the rest of his life.

It wasn't easy at all.

But it was necessary. It was the right thing to do. Not something to be proud of. Not something to be ashamed of. Just right.

It's also not something I've dwelt on much in the intervening years, but it was brought to mind by the Washington Post's reporting on the plight of Spec. Joseph Darby, the soldier who turned over the pictures of the torture at Al Ghraib to the authorities who finally took action to stop it.

Spec. Darby's actions had far greater impact than mine, and were, in some ways, immeasurably harder. The people on whom he blew the whistle were from his neighbors in the rural areas that the Army Reserve's 372nd MP Company draws its recruits from. Folks who know him, know them. The consequences of his actions have followed him home, and it hasn't been a particularly happy homecoming.

It's a shame.

I don't know if Spec. Darby takes pride in what he did. I know there's no shame in it. It was just right. And the response of some of his neighbors has been flat wrong.

As Kevin Drum writes, "...spare a thought for Spec. Joseph Darby. We need more men like him."

We do. And more like Master-at-Arms First Class William J. Kimbro, US Navy Dog Handler, who, according to the Taguba report, "knew his duties and refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI personnel at Abu Ghraib."

And more like 1LT David O. Sutton, 229th MP Company, who General Taguba says "...took immediate action and stopped an abuse, then reported the incident to the chain of command."

We need them, and they need us. What they did was hard. What they face now shouldn't be harder. While we condemn the bad guys, let's remember to commend the good guys.

"...fooling around."? Well foolish, anyway...

PFC Lynndie England's back in the news, and she's not helping anyone - even, or especially, herself.

"Everyone in the company from the commander down" knew what was going on. "The pictures were shown to anyone who wanted to see them. Cpl. [Charles] Graner told me he showed them to his platoon sergeant and platoon leader."

"Cpl. Graner would personally stitch up detainees if the wounds weren't too bad. He would take pictures of his work. One particular incident, Cpl. Graner ran a former Iraqi general into a wall and split his lip. Cpl. Graner stitched up his lip."

"We thought it looked funny, so pictures were taken." It was "basically us fooling around."

And here you thought she didn't want to appear in any of the pictures has claimed she was ordered to pose for, because it was "weird."

Don't look to Lynndie for contrition, though.

She said there were many other abuses, but "I can't remember all of them." She said she didn't think guards should be punished because "we did what we were told."

In contrast, there's Sgt. Hydrue S. Joyner, who seems to get it.

"If an MI [officer] told me to make detainees masturbate together, I would cut off his air supply," said Joyner. "This is not acceptable instruction to me. There is no special training to know this behavior is wrong, except 'life.' "

Good points from a surprising source...

Of all the petty conceits that comprise George W. Bush's personality, the ones that I've found most offensive as a citizen and a veteran are his apparent pride in being a 'war president' and his boast that he brought the country to 'a war footing.' We may be at war, but it's a stretch to say that he presides over the effort, and if he does, 'war criminal' might be a more accurate label, given the ongoing disclosures about the conduct of the war. As far as his 'war footing' claims go, the Wall Street Journal's Mark Helprin exposes that lie with a few simple facts.

"The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day."

Helprin is wrong about any number of things in his most recent Opinion Journal column, (hey, it is the WSJ), but he's absolutely right about that. And about this.

"When soldiers are killed because they do not have equipment (in the words of a returning officer, "not enough vehicles, not enough munitions, not enough medical supplies, not enough water"), when reservists are retained for years, and rotations canceled, it is the consequence of a fiscal policy that seems more attuned to the electoral landscape of 2004 than to the national security of the United States."

John Kerry offered Bush the opportunity to pay for his war during the $87 billion funding round, and Bush steadfastly refused, with the aid and comfort of the Congressional chickenhawks. The American people stand ready to make sacrifice and contribution if the cause can be justified, and the Administration reponse is 'go shopping' (if you can afford the gas for your trip to Walmart).

Bush dishonors our national resolve and in so doing disables our nation's warriors in the midst of a battle he ordered.

Everybody's got a pitch...

...for cash today, it seems, but I'm feeling kindly disposed to the DCCC right now, so if you aren't inspired to click on the PayPal button to your right (did I mention the ISP bill? The phone bill? The City Light bill?), well, click on over to the Stakeholder, where they'll fill you in on what's at stake, and treat you to a terrific Emily Miller story at the same time.

Why the warm feelings toward the House Democrats today? Well, as a proudly partisan D myself, I'm a perpetual fan, but I was particularly pleased to see this assessment of Don Barbieri's run for WA-05, the open seat formerly held by Speaker Tom Foley.

Greg Speed, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Washington's 5th District is one of about seven open seats in the nation that Democrats feel they can win.

"He is running one of the strongest campaigns in the country for an open seat right now," Speed said. "What has them in fits about Barbieri is he has the type of pro-business background and ties to the folks in the business and labor communities and in both parties in Spokane that is going to make him so formidable."

Personally, I think the symbolic value of recapturing Speaker Tom's old seat should elevate this one on anybody's priority list. I'll admit that Don Barbieri might be a little more pro-biz and hawkish than a lot of progressives would prefer, but frankly, a candidate who might please Seattle would go down in smoke in Spokane. The bottom line is that while he might not take every vote I might wish for in the House, he will take the one I wish for the most.

Which one might that be? This crack from State Republican Chairman Chris Vance offers a clue. ""The people of the 5th District are not going to elect a Democrat and help make Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House," Vance says.

Well, they just might. In fact, there's a pretty good chance they will. You might want to help. You can check him out here.

Surely...

"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror."

One of these things...

"We all know that the Democrats are against the war [in Iraq]. They are trying to do everything they can to undermine the war."
-- Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), May 13 news conference

"We ought to be working . . . in the most bipartisan way we can here in the Congress. And what we're seeing is . . . increased partisanship, partisan attacks" by Democrats.
-- Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), same news conference

Offering a new apology for the prisoner abuse, Powell said in neighboring Jordan: "Everybody says we should return sovereignty to the Iraqi people so that it no longer looks like an occupation. That's exactly what we are trying to do."

Not that it won't be an occupation, because, of course, it will be. So that it won't look like an occupation.

Whatever else you say about Powell, he's a careful man, and when left to his own devices he carefully measures his words. I think his meaning here is abundantly clear.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

A lot of wisdom...

There is only one way to heal red 'n blue and that is to so thoroughly repudiate the Republican party at the polls that they will be forced to purge assholes like DeLay from their leadership and start putting their country before their party. Then we can talk. Unless that happens, it's brass knuckles political warfare because when you give these guys an inch they always take a thousand miles and move the destination even farther to the right.

Again, exactly so. This just isn't the time to talk about 'unity tickets' or other accomodations. As Nancy Pelosi says, "No whining, just winning."

Exactly.

This is just stupid. A McCain VP would ensure a loss across the board.

While John McCain may be a personal friend of John Kerry's, and an individual of higher personal integrity than we've come to expect of many of his co-partisans, the inescapable fact is that he's a resolutely conservative Republican politically.

Frankly, if John Kerry demonstrated the kind of total collapse of judgement and prinicple that would inspire him to try and put John McCain on a Democratic ticket, I don't know if I could vote for him.

Speaking of blogs...

Blog4Kerry comes from Chicagoland, and Daniel's been at it longer than most of us. Since he apparently has an actual life outside the blogosphere, he's not as compulsive as some of us about perpetual posting, but when he's got something to write, it's worth reading. He's dressed up the joint a bit recently, and given Upper Left pride of place atop his blogroll, but it's the content that earns it a spot on my list.

East Bay Kerry is a great example of a blog as an organizing tool. While some of us use most of our space for spouting off, EBK is a team effort that allows for a certain amount of editorial content, but focuses on real political work - meetings, committees, visibility events and fundraising for the San Francisco East Bay area are all facilitated by the blog. For folks with more to do than to say, it's a great example to follow.

Is the party over?

The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias takes note of the apparent malaise, if not demise, of the 'warbloggers. Whether she's right or wrong about that may be subject to a debate the wingnuts in question may be happy to have, but it's hard to argue with this...

"...the war party is over. There is nothing to celebrate any more. (Not that there ever was.) President George W. Bush's folly is a bloody, costly, tragic, world-dividing disaster that has led to more acts of terrorism by more groups."

There's still ground for a legitimate debate on where we go next with the debacle in Iraq. I'm in the 'we're obliged to clean up our mess camp' right now, but the 'get the hell out' arguments are becoming more compelling all the time.

There's just no legitimacy remaining for the 'this was a great idea' crowd. All they're left with is blaming the war critics for being right all along.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Good advice...

...if slightly insufficient.

The New York Times had some timely tips for Bush yesterday:

Order Mr. Rumsfeld to get military intelligence personnel out of the business of overseeing the detention and interrogation of Iraqi prisoners; an overwhelming majority of the prisoners have no intelligence value.

Ban private contractors from American military prisons.

Take all of the available trained military prison guards and send them to Iraq to relieve the exhausted troops who are doing work for which they were never prepared.

Order Mr. Rumsfeld to immediately issue new regulations that not only say that prisoners and detainees must be treated according to the letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions, but also ban, one by one, the harsh practices inflicted on prisoners.

Indefensible

"Mr. Womack, Specialist Graner's lawyer, said he doubted the incident took place. If it happened, he said, his client had been ordered to strike the detainee. And, in any event, a certain amount of violence was to be expected, he said.

"Striking doesn't mean a lot," he added. "Breaking a rib or a bone, that would be excessive."

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession...when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

"Mr. Volzer, the lawyer for Specialist Ambuhl, said what took place was intimidation, not torture. "I wouldn't term it abuse," he said."

"'torture' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control."

"In defending against the charge that Sergeant Davis stomped on a detainee's feet, his lawyer, Mr. Bergrin, said he would make the case that the prisoner was not hurt.

"He may have stepped on the hands," Mr. Bergrin said, "but there was no stomping, no broken bones."

Article 17. Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

US President George W. Bush vowed that US troops would stay in Iraq after the June 30 handover of sovereignty..."the vital mission of our military in helping to provide security will continue on July 1 and beyond."

Well, I know I wasn't the only one...

...who remembered Armed Forces Day. There were hundreds of parade entries and thousands of spectators in Bremerton, WA, and there was John Kerry, in a national radio address...

...on this Armed Forces Day, I hope we will send a message and a promise to all who wear the uniform at home or overseas. The message is simple and profound. We salute them for doing their best to defend our nation and our ideals. They are the best of America. And our promise to them is that we will do our best to meet our obligations to them and to their families.

Armed Forces Day is a reminder that military service is not just a job. It requires an inner strength to leave the embrace of loved ones and all that is familiar, to go far away to the front lines into the choking dust of a desert and into unknown dangers to keep the rest of us secure. As we honor our military today, both nationally and in more personal ways, through phone calls, letters, and hospital visits, let us also remember that American power has been and always will be a function of our nation's character.

As citizens, every one of us must live the values and make America both great and good. That's the kind of America our Armed Forces have fought for across the generations. It's the stronger America that we must now build together. It's the country we owe to our heroes when they return home.

Happy Holiday!

What, you didn't know?

Lots of folks don't. Armed Forces Day is one of the last remaining non-Monday holdidays, so most folks don't get a day off, which gives it a pretty low profile.

Still, with so many of our troops in harms way, it seems like it should at least be noticed, if not actually observed. Me, I'm doing a little observance. I'm off in a minute to catch a ferry boat to Bremerton, WA, where I'll march with some brother veterans in the Armed Forces Day Parade, which is a big deal in Bremerton. It's a Navy town.

Anyway, more blogging later, but have a happy holiday, and think a kind thought about a GI who may not have had a happy day of any kind for quite a while...

Friday, May 14, 2004

Seems like a long time...

...since I've had much to say about endorsements. Since Kerry wrapped up the nomination, there really hasn't been all that much to say. All the people you'd expect to endorse have been making all the endorsements you'd expect. Most of the action has involved traditionally backers of Democrats (can you spell AFSCME? I knew SEIU could...) scrambling to get right with the winner.

Recent days have brought some more intriguing results on the endorsement front, though. First, it was the NRA taking a pass on the incumbent. They haven't ruled out a future endorsement, but they've conditioned it on killing the assault weapons ban. Now, I'm a pretty strong 2nd Amendment Democrat, myself, and not a particular fan of the assault weapons ban, but as gun control legislation goes, it's a pretty popular law. It's particularly popular among some otherwise Republican friendly suburban women - the fabled 'soccer mom' vote. A pro-choice position on automatic weapons balanced with an anti-choice position on reproduction could pack the polling place parking lots with SUV's bearing Kerry stickers.

Besides, renewal of the ban was a Bush campaign pledge. Whattaya think he is, some kinda flip-flopper?

But given that KeepandBearArms.com has already lined up with Libertarian candidate Aaron Russo, the loss of an NRA endorsement, even if no one else picked it up, would be a pretty heavy blow to Bush. Threre really doesn't seem to be a winning play for him in the gun control arena.

Now there's word that the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, who backed Bush 2000, has changed course and given the nod to John Kerry. First responder endorsements, from the IAFF and police unions, are always good, and never better than in the post 9/11 environment. It's almost impossible to overstate how instrumental the Firefighters were in Kerry's primary victories, and the IBPO has the potential to be similarly important going forward to the general election.

Ya gotta love her...

Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay have decreed that all significant legislation is to be passed by straight GOP party-line votes. Save on the most trivial issues, no floor amendments are permitted under DeLay's rules, and no Democrats are allowed on conference committees, which frequently rewrite major bills in accord with DeLay's diktats.

Make it happen!

"The Fotomat Defense"

"It is the photographs that give one the vivid realization of what actually took place," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. "Words don't do it."

"...Why not?" she wonders. "Is the country being run by a bunch of preschoolers who can't process all those big words and will only sit still for a colorful picture book?"

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my encounters with the Abu Ghraib photos have mostly been a matter of happenstance. I haven't gone looking for them, or posted a gallery of them (apologies to all those whose searches have sent them to Upper Left because I've used the words 'Abu Ghraib' and 'pictures' in the same sentence a few times). I don't need them to know what's happened is wrong. Unlike the Secretary of Defense, I've been to war. Grisly images don't fascinate me.

In fact, I agree with Arianna. The images may be important, especially as trial evidence, but they shouldn't be needed.

"According to Taguba, U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib were guilty of: "Positioning a naked detainee on a box ... with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes and penis to simulate electric torture"; "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees"; "Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair"; "Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick."

"Close your eyes. Now picture what you just read. Still need to see photos before you hit the roof? I didn't think so."

That's also what blows big holes in the defense offered by some of the accused guards. One of their defense attorneys was on CNN earlier today, referring to their actions as being responses to "apparently legal orders." No order to perform torture can be "apparently legal," and the words alone are abundant evidence of torture.

We can slog along now in Iraq, but it now stinks of lies and shame. We won't be able to collectively think of Iraq without seeing those images of hooded prisoners and smirking soldiers. Which means we won't want to think about it a lot. Kind of like Vietnam.

Bush ReLost Vietnam. The American people can forgive many things, but making us ashamed of ourselves-- that they won't forgive.

Is that the wrong message to send our troops? Well, no. The truth isn't a matter of right or wrong. The truth is just what is.

The right message to send our troops is the order to stand down and make room for an international replacement force.

From the Don't Panic file...

Supine cooperation with the G.O.P. has become standard operating procedure in election years for elements of the mainstream media. This year, the Republicans would like nothing better than to demoralize Democrats before the general election actually begins.

****

But before anyone takes the media’s funereal pronouncements about Mr. Kerry too seriously, let’s not forget the record of his would-be pallbearers. These are, after all, the same experts who assured us last year that Mr. Kerry had irrevocably blown his chances, that Howard Dean was almost certain to secure the Democratic nomination, and that Mr. Bush was virtually "unbeatable."

Who's running this show?

Berg family Forbidden To Meet Son's Body At Dover AFB

Berg's body arrived Wednesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. His parents had requested permission to be at the base when the coffin arrived, but that request was denied. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said Thursday that refusal came from the Department of Defense.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, ...predicted that the Senate would approve the extra money to pay for fuel, body armor, troop transportation and supplies, but not without some strings attached.

...Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, objected to an effort by the committee chairman, Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, to limit the scope of questions to the $25 billion reserve fund.

"I've been on this committee for 24 years, I've been in the Senate 42 years, and I have never been denied the opportunity to question any person that's come before a committee, on what I wanted to ask for it," Mr. Kennedy said, his voice booming. "I resent it and reject it on a matter of national importance. And we're talking about prison abuses."

Mr. Warner backed down...

The most heated exchanges were between (Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island) and Mr. Wolfowitz.

"What I've heard from you is dissembling and avoidance of answers, lack of knowledge," Mr. Reed said.

"I'm not dissembling, Senator Reed," Mr. Wolfowitz responded. "I have the same reaction as General Pace. What you described to me sounds to me like a violation of the Geneva Convention. It's the first time I've heard that it was in General Sanchez's direction."

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, questioned Mr. Wolfowitz's credibility in predicting what will occur in Iraq... "You have made numerous predictions, time and time again, that have turned out to be untrue and were based on faulty assumptions," Mrs. Clinton said.

Yep, it's true.

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - "Nothing has gone wrong" in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday, despite widespread outrage at U.S. abuse of prisoners, an entrenched insurgency and a looming transfer of sovereignty.

A man of many moods?

Media Matters has been tracking and transcribing radio hate talker Michael Savage, who tells his syndicators that "Those who listen to me say they hear a bit of Plato, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Moses, Jesus, and Frankenstein.

So, would this be the Plato part?

"I believe that a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour -- a trial and executed."

Or maybe this subtle erotica is Henry Miller...

"Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices and they should be dropped from airplanes."

"These people don't fear death, they fear humiliation. The only way to humiliate them is take their deepest fear, the pig, the dog, the woman with the leash, and use it on them to break them!"

And then there's Jesus...

"I would like to give a medal to everybody at Grab-an-Arab [sic] prison for showing constraint. Every one of these American soldiers should be given an award for having restrained themselves, for what you see today is a direct result of the political correctness that is defeating this nation."

Quote of the Day

Hi Patty, welcome to the neighborhood!

Upper Left Senator Patty Murray has a new campaign blog, and it's off to a decent start. There's a staffer assigned to keeping it fresh - live blogging from the King County Convention, daily news summaries and a series of posts on the Senator's legislative accomplishments, so far. There are some elements missing, too, and a couple design issues I could quibble about, but it's there, and that's something.

I'm really wondering, though, why campaigns that want to have blogs don't get a blogger to run them, or at least help put them together. After looking at Patty's new effort, I revisited the campaign sites of other Washington State Congressional candidates and I'm frankly a little dismayed by what I found.

It seems to me that the major benefits of a campaign blog are timeliness and the potential for interactivity. The Murray blog has the first base covered, so far, but is pretty sadly lacking on the second. It's hard to get links in if you don't create links out, and without a blogroll or a single link in the posts to another blog, a blog gets a lot harder to find, and if folks can't find it, what's the point?

At least there's a comments option at the Murray blog, but the requirement for registration and logging into the campaign site seems like an unneccesary barrier to me. It's not unique, of course, and I understand the impulse to protect against trolls, but that's why you need someone keeping up with the thing, someone as obsessive as most of us that keep these things are.

Still, what the Murray campaign is doing is light years ahead of what most of the competition is up to. There are two other campaigns with links to blogs, or what they call blogs, as adjuncts to their main campaign sites. Alex Alben, a challenger for the open seat in WA-08, uses his 'blog' as a vehicle for more or less monthly personal essays. A series of monthly essays just isn't a blog, not at all. No visible links, no blogroll, no comments and darn little content. It's nice that the candidate is personally involved, but he needs someone to fill in the blanks.

Rep. Adam Smith (WA-09) is in similar straights. There's only one entry on his 'blog', an April 14 kick-off event announcement. It's posted (apparently) by the Congressman himself, which, again, is nice, but hardly enough.

Rep. Brian Baird (WA-03) doesn't have a blog as such, but he does have a front page side bar labeled "Latest News." C'mon Brian, surely you've made some news since endorsing Kerry on February 2!

Overall the impression is that the candidates know they're supposed to be doing something with this internet thingie, and blogs are hot, but they haven't got a clue when it comes to the real how and why, and they aren't committing any resources to the effort.

Frankly, other than Patty Murray, who is making a serious effort that could, with a tweak or two, become an excellent one, these folks would be better off dropping the links if they're not going to do the job. No regular reader of blogs is likely to bookmark what they're doing now.